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Is it possible to reduce the sourness in my bread

Is it possible to reduce the sourness in my bread

I used a starter with a bit of wholewheat and rye instead of using my regular white starter for my recent bake and bulk fermented in the fridge for 18 hrs as I had to go out on Sat. afternoon and was too late to bake by the time I got home and had to wait till Sunday morning. The bread was fine but I found it a little sour, (not sure if this could be due to the ww/rye starter as it smells stronger than my white starter). The taste is acceptable to me, ( I have not choice since I made it) but I'm hesitant to give my breads away to friends who may find the sourness overwhelming. I read in the posts that longer fermentation time results in a better flavour but does " better flavour" mean sourness in this case? I've never had the opportunity to taste an original sourdough bread so I'm unable to tell if the level of acidity in my bread is right or too much.

My question then is whether the level of acidity can be adjusted through timing or do I need to change the feeding ratio of my starter. Any advice would be appreciated, thank you.

P.S. I have used the "Search" function and came up with Debra Winks' article on Lactic Acid Fermentation. This is all too technical and scientific for a simple-minded home baker such as I to fully comprehend, Just trying to understand the complexities of sourdough is enough for me to want to give up and just settle for simple yeasted breads!!

hi j, try to use a shorter proofing time, and try to use your starter just before it reaches its peak. I'm finding that using my starter after it has fallen, well after it reached its peak, will increase sourness. and my understanding is the longer the bulk proof, the more sourness you get. proofing at room temps instead of the fridge should allow the yeast to have more of an effect, more rise, at the expense of sourness, the bacteria won't have as much time to ferment the floor. that should reduce sourness a bit, if not entirely. I also hear using rye can increase sourness, but haven't used any rye yet, so hopefully someone can comment and enlighten both of us! I'd like to start adding some rye and whole wheat myself.

for explaining this to me in simple layman's terms. I'm trying hard to control the timing of my starter. When I take it out of the fridge to feed/refresh in the evening (fed once every 12 hrs for 24 hrs in room temp before returning to fridge) the first feed takes abt 6-8 hrs to triple. By the time it's ready for its next feed, it would have peaked and gone down before the 12 hrs is up. Can I then feed my storage starter sooner before the 12 hrs is up? (this so reminds me of when I had my first baby and I was at a loss to know if I should wait to feed him every 4-hrs or sooner. :-D

My refreshed starter for baking more than doubles after 5 hrs after second feed. When it has peaked and If I'm not yet ready to bake (if it's too early in the morning) I put this in the fridge for an hr or two until I'm ready to bake.

I bulk proof for 3 hrs in room temp just below 30C, s/f every 30 mins for 2 hrs and then let it sit for an extra hr (maybe I should cut down time here?) and put in fridge o'nite for 8-10 hrs instead of 18 if a length bulk fermentation period is what makes my bread sour.

If it helps, I feed my wheat levain around every 4 - 6 hours when getting ready to bake. The levain will get at least 3, and possibly 5 feeds before use. I use a temperature in the around 22*C, and the hydration is 60%. I'm not looking for sourness either, and I don't get it.

So, consider 1] feed more and more often 2] look at your temperature ( and I believe you may live somewhere warm and wet?) and 3] look at the hydration you maintain the leaven at; the more water in there, the quicker it will ferment.

But, honestly, the best thing I think you might look at is not doing the overnight retard.

I only know how to work with a 100% hydration starter since I'm terrible with numbers. It would allow me to be certain how much flour and water I have in the starter. Would it help if I fed my starter using a larger ratio (currently @1:2:2) as suggested by Mini O at 1:5:5 to help it go longer between feeds if my work does not allow me to feed it at closer intervals.

Yes, you can use a greater quantity of fresh flour relative to your levain in feeds. To do this successfully you need to be confident that your levain can cope with having lots of fresh food thrown at it. Think here about setting off on a long run when your body is a bit tired: would you rather eat a banana for a quick sugar-fix, or indulge yourself in a full-on 3 course meal? Bombarding your levain with 5 times its weight in flour is akin to the 3 course meal! The phrase "little and often" comes to mind as the most ideal feed scenario if you want less sour. I understand that is probably not really what you want to read.

If it helps with the numbers, my feeding ratio works out as 1[levain]: 1[flour]: 0.6 [water].

I still recommend you cut out retarding the dough; that will help you a lot. Then just work out a feeding schedule which you can work with, and produces bread which tastes as close as possible to what you want.

If I were to reduce the hydration of my starter, how would I calculate this when using the starter with a 100% hydration recipe? Could I simply compensate this with a little bit more water to make up for the 100%? I would also guess that the starter would be less liquidy/bubbly but with more distinctive gluten formation. This is just so I know how to tell when my levain is fully matured and when I should feed again as unlike the 100% the rise and collapse may not be as noticeable. Pls excuse me if I appear to be asking a lot of silly questions.

The way I do it is to look at the overall hydration in the formula [that is water in the leaven and final dough water, combined], and adjust from there

So, you might have a formula which uses 500g flour in total, and water at 340g; that is 68% hydration. Say you use a leaven containing 200g flour, then your current leaven would use 200g water. So final dough requires 140g water. If you moved to leaven with 60% hydration, then the liquid in the leaven portion will fall by 80g to 120g. You simply add that 80g of water to the final dough water, meaning 220g water in the final dough. I do this using percentages, but you may find it easier using the weights shown above. Either way, start with overall dough hydration, and make sure your adjusted formula ends up with the same overall water content as your previous recipe

Armed with what I recently learned from Mini O re hydration levels in recipes using a starter, I now have a faint idea on how to work with a lower hydration starter, thanks to your clear and concise explanation. So far, I've only been using a very small amt of starter with my dough (around 50 - 60 grms each time) so the water difference would be out by approx 10 - 20 grms at most. Off I go now to practise my maths with different variables. Thanks again Andy.

The more frequently I feed my starter, the less sour it seems to be - yeast grows quicker that the souring bacteria, I think. So lots of discarding and feeding means that your starter has less bacteria because it doesn't catch up.

The souring bacteria grow faster than yeast in cooler temperatures so a long ferment in your fridge means that the bacteria catch up and get the chance to make more sourness...I think.

So... to conclude...I think...well fed/refreshed starter, less proofing time and a warmer environment should mean less sourness...I think!! (I now wait to be shot down in flames by one of the big kids :-)

Multiple starter feedings at intervals under 8 hours before you mix the final dough will reduce the sourness by a lot. If you do this and then do an overnight retarding of the dough I think that you will find it not too sour. Overnight being close to 8 hours and most definitely not 18.

The 18 hr retardation was only because was too late to bake when I got home on Sat night, I had no choice but to keep it in the fridge until the next morning, I would normally not retard it for 18 hrs but only for 8 hrs or less if I can start my mixing before dinner time, complete my s&fs before bed time and then leave it to bulk proof in the fridge. That's my ideal scenario but feeding at intervals under 8 hrs would be a little difficult for me if I'm at work. I may need to switch to a Sat/Sun bake schedule instead of baking on Fri/Sat. Thanks Jeff

As a side note to this entire discussion, what is being discussed here is largely a matter of taste and preference. It is not a matter of right or wrong. Many people do not like sour flavor in their bread and for others it is never sour enough. Tailor everything to YOUR lifestyle and preferences and I am certain it will all fall into place for you.

I'll def try and feed at 8 hr or less intervals but it may not always be possible as I have to work and if I feed it at 7:30/ 8:00 a.m before I leave for work, I can just about get home to give it another feeding by 7:30/8:00 p.m. Can I feed it again even before it has peaked/collapsed and let it sit for another 8 hrs before the next morning? Would this not be considered overfeeding the starter? I'm more than happy with a shorter retardation as this means it won't be hogging my fridge space for a long period of time. If feeding at irregular intervals is not possible then I may have to change my baking schedule altogether. Thank you all for your most helpful advice.

I feed once a day but use two thirds of my starter to make each day's loaf. I make my bread in the morning but feed before I go to bed so that the starter will be nice and busy when I wake up. This system works for me and seems to keep a milder starter.

I also have a sourer starter that I just 'mistreat' - I am a very poor parent to this one, which seems to keep it sourer.

but will do so here too since it fits. Sour is really science but it doesn't have to cbeomplicated.

Yeast live 7-8 days, not sure about labs, but i'm sure they have similar life spans from my experimenting . I routinely build levains from small amounts of seed over (3) 4 hour builds where the levain is at full strength and doubles in 4 hours after the 3rd feeding. But, a half hour after feeding the 3rd stage, I usually refrigerate the levain for 1 to 4 days. I also try not to use the seed until it has been refrigerated for 2-3 days after building it to peak as well.

Since labs reproduce 3 times faster than yeast does at low temperatures, even though they both slow down dramatically, by retarding seed and levains you end up inoculating you bread with many more labs than yeast by retarding than you would if you built a 12 hour levain at room temperature and used it. Bulk fermenting and then retarding inoculated dough does the same thing. In the cold, roughly speaking in 36 hours, you have as many labs in the dough as you get at room temperature in an hour. But the yeast increase is what you would have in 3 hours at room tmperature.

The same thing is true at 85 F.Labs reproduce 3 times faster than yeast does but both reproduce much faster than at 72 degree room temperature. At room temperature, labs and yeast reproduce at about the same rate. So if you want sour you want to retard seeds, levains and dough for as long as possible while not allowing the dough, seed or levains to run out of food for the yeast and labs to eat or go past the 7 - 8 day limit yeast can live.

It seems the The Tartine and Forkish methods of levain building, among others, are developed to reduce the amount of sour in SD bread.not enhance it, whch makes sense as SFSD is a very mild sour. Your seed,levain and dough methods can be modified dramatically with time and temperature to increase or reduce sour depending on your personal taste or time limits. White starters also produce less sour. If you want less sour, usa a white stater and do everything at room temperature. The yeast will multiply at the same rate as labs, the dough will be ready to bake faster and the sour will be muted.

I am curious why you refrigerate your levain before using it. Building the levain with 4 hour feeds would minimize sourness, but then refrigerating the levain before use would increase it, right? I am fairly new to this so just trying to understand.

you have to build a levain to make bread to get from 10 g of seed to 180 g to make a loaf of bread. If you want a non sour bread, at each feeding you would throw away half of the levain before feeding it and cutting what ever amount of yeast and labs you had in half so the levain gets weaker and less sour . I don't do that. I keep the entire previous levain and feed that instead. By refrigerating the seed and the levain you increase the amount of lab to yeast ratio in the levain dramatically. This increases its ability to make sour much faster than the yeast can make CO2 to raise the bread.. You end up with a much more sour bread but some folks don't like it as sour as others.

I only keep 80 g of 60% hydration starter in the fridge so I don't ever have to feed it or throw anything away - too much work and waste n my book. But others keep large amounts of liquid starter in the fridge or on the counter with lots of work feeding and waste - which is what I did for years. No more!

When my starter has peaked and starting to show signs of collapse (based on the crease marks on top). it could be at 5 a.m. in the morning and I'd like to continue with my beauty sleep for another hr or more before I start to mix/autolyse my flour which is already measured out the night before and sitting in my mixing bowl. I also autolyse my flour w/o the starter first so while I'm waiting I just thought I should keep it in the fridge but I could be doing this all wrong.

refrigerate the levain 1 hour after the 3rd feeding is because I want to do things on my schedule with no worries. If I get up at my usual 6 AM I get the levain out and know that it will double in 4 hours. This gives me exactly 4 hours of autolyse for the dough flours - the maximum I like to go without refrigerating it. 4 hours is the minimum with the kind of whole grain breads we usually make. By 10 AM I am mixing the levain with the autolyse and starting the gluten development process. After 10 minutes of slap and folds and 3/4 of an hour of S&F's every 15 minutes and 1 hour of counter rest, into the fridge it goes no later than 1 PM. By 6 AM it has bulk fermented for +-17-18 hours and out it comes for a 1 hour warm up, shaping and final proofing. By 10 AM it is usually ready for the oven, baked and cooled just in time for lunch :-)

Retarding is a great way to get and keep bread baking on your schedule instead of reacting to its schedule. Any time it is out of whack just refrigerate what you have unti the schedule matches yours.

just some thoughts on autolyse, as this is another reason I like to use a stiff levain rather than liquid.

It is generally [and correctly] assumed that the leaven should not be included in the autolyse; so the autolyse consists only of the final dough flour and water.

However, to me, and other far more renowned bakers [eg. Hamelman], this only applies where the leaven is hydrated at a rate equal to or less than the overall hydration in the dough formula. So, if we go back to my original illustration of a dough with 68% hydration....if your leaven is hydrated at 60%, then you can exclude it from the autolyse. The big BUT comes here: if you use a liquid leaven at 100% hydration then it HAS to be include in your autolyse.

The reason is this: one essential element of the autolyse is to maximise the flour's ability to take up water. I know that this was not Calvel's main aim when he first proposed use of autolyse. What he wanted to achieve was to speed up all the enzymatic reactions which take place when flour and water are combined to create dough. But this is most effective when the dough is fully hydrated. Your process means that the autolyse is under-hydrated, and I would argue this is counter-productive. So, if you want to continue using a 100% hydration leaven, then it should be included in the autolyse. If you are happy with a 60% hydration in your leaven, then it does not need to be included in the autolyse.

Very intersting Andy. I was considering making a post as to the benefits of different hydration starters opposed to the speed in which they develop (but in any ration this can be controlled by the percentage of seed). Is the total reasoning behind what you posted because the autolyse would be too dry if the levain was at a higher % than the finished dough? My understanding was that you never add the levain or yeast to an autolyse. It would seem problematic to add your levain to an autolyse that was extended (more than the 30-60 minutes) I've been experimenting with longer autolyse like 4-6 hours noticing a much nicer coloring of the crust.

In addition I was curious if extended autolyse with a malted flour would be problematic from the enzymes.

We are talking wheat here. For the rye sour, I am in the "wet" camp. I know there are few of us, actually. Most work with a stiffer rye sour, but then again, few work with 100% Rye using 3 stage process, which is something I am doing all the time now.

I've never had problems including the rye sour as part of the autolyse. But I don't do long autolyse very often, and have never used any levain in long autolyse process.

I'm still arguing that autolyse requires full hydration to be most effective. In fact I wouldn't use autolyse myself unless this were the case. Holding back any water seems wrong.

interesting. I'd consider all the flour hydrated even if part happens in the levain. I wonder if this idea is mostly concerning hydrating the flour or ease combining or even quality of combining after autolyse.

I do follow this step in some of my sponge doughs where there isn't enough liquid in final to hydrate the flour. I have a poolish dough at work where I've autolysed with and without poolish and found I get better development leaving the poolish out and a more consistently timed dough taboot.

And yet another fine answer to the reason for a biga. It's an interesting concept that kinda makes sense to me. The best reasoning I find for this is that final mixing of two seperate things of the same consistency is most certainly gonna be easier ( I'm speaking for the dough not the person mixing ) than two things of opposing consistencies. This must make for a better gluten network in a dough and in less time taboot.

You mentioned three stage builds on your Rye is your go to these days. Well I'd like to incorporate a nice Rye into my upcoming Farmers Market Bakes (I'm blogging on these not sure if you've seen) and my go to method since I have to bake in waves is making a dough with a final proof in a retarder. Most ryes I'm finding even with large portions of levain have a good amount of commercial yeast in them and are handled quickly (the only long step building the levain) from the mix to the oven. If by cutting out or at least cutting down significantly the yeast in a recipe heavy on Rye would it hold up to a retarded proof? I'm thinking of a Currant Rye with some spice using a Rye Levain and maybe 40% rye. I only ask cause you mentioned you were on the Rye train these days and maybe you'd have an some insight.

If you mean the 100% rye breads, my best advice is to avoid retarding. It is not a good choice of process. The best way to deal with these breads is to give extended fermentation in the earlier stages using complex fermentation. I use Auerman's Russian process, but you could also consider the German 3-stage Detmolder. Hamelman is good on this, and Juergen Krauss here on TFL will doubtless have good material too, also MiniOven. I'll let you do the searching for these 2 if that's ok?

Anyway, your final paste should be made warm and proofed fairly rapidly, with short bulk and final proof preceding baking. Rye paste is held together by fibrous pentosans which knit the starch molecules together. Pentosans become very unstable in latter stage of proof and early baking phase. Hence why sourdough is considered mandatory by many when it comes to using large proportion of rye in the formula. The acid protects the pentosans from collapse and the resulting gummy crumb which results from this situation.

So, try to work warm with your high rye pastes and don't make them hang about any longer than necessary. You will not be disappointed by the flavours if you get your ferments right. I don't get it when people do overnight retard for more flavour. I'm never letdown by flavour in my bread, and I don't use overnight retard of final dough ever.

Your kind comments about my blog contents are very much appreciated. Many thanks to you.

I've added the comments about no retard as it keeps the reply in line with the OP [Judy]'s original question on how to reduce sourness. But it's tentative. High rye bread will usually be sour, but is balanced with sweetness from sources such as rye malt or blackstrap molasses.

With a work schedule it may be easier to engineer the bread so that the active periods happen about 9-12 hours apart. The technique of taking some starter before it has peaked will give you a similar flavor to a double feed, which you will not be home to do.

Here's a sample of how this might work:

Day 1: Late in the evening, feed starter enough so that by morning it has risen but has not yet fully peaked.

Day 2: Early in the morning, mix the levain, making the seed small enough and the room temp cool enough so that it will have risen but not yet peaked by the time you get home from work. Leave the ongoing culture to finish its fermentation cycle and fully mature.

At night, mix up your main dough. Levain should be small enough and temp cool enough so that your bulk fermentation will take about 9-12 hours to rise to about double. For example, 10% of total flour might be in the levain and the temperature might be about 65F.

Day 3- Bake Day: When the dough has doubled in volume, shape the loaf and allow it to proof. Use a warmer proof temp (70-80F) if you'll be able to bake in a couple of hours (Saturday), or put into the fridge to proof while you go to work and bake when you get home.

Is there a reason why you need a whole wheat/rye starter? If not, could you go back to using white flour only? I'm actually looking to go in the opposite direction as you. I can't seem to get my bread sour enough for my taste. Maybe I need some WW and rye in my starter. My starter is white flour only, and even if I retard in the fridge for days, it still doesn't seem to sour the dough.

I was simply experimenting with a wheat and rye starter to see what result I would get if I deviated from my regular white starter, so now I know better and will continue to treat my white with tender loving care :D !!

That's incorrect. It is the heterofermentative lactobacillus that are responsible for producing acetic acid under the stressful conditions of cold. Acetic acid bacteria plays a more limited role in the presence of oxygen only, on the surface of the dough.

A touch of sodium bicarbonate will remove sourness. It's a remedy I used many times when I prepared bread for my parents that hate any slightest hint of sourness (or taste whatsoever) in bread. 1 gr dissolved in the water of the final dough of a 1 kg mass is enough and doesn't leave traces.

I was forced to use it even when preparing panettone and pandoro as one of my colleagues always noticed a "strange acetic aftertone" that I couldn't perceive.

why Clayton put 1/4 tsp of baking soda in some of the SD breads. I always thought that he was trying to get more lift out of the dough since the acid in the SD bread would activate it and no commercial yeast would be required. It might have been used to tone down the sour too or both.

lactobacillus:yeast ratio. Calvel used 0.33% salt in his refreshments in one of his schedules. Ganzle said that lactobacillus sanfrancisensis is twice as sensitive to salt as the yeast Candida milleri. I'm guessing you'd want to use an optimum yeast growth temperature, perhaps 80 °F or thereabouts. The salt would undoubtedly change the timing of the peaks.

I recently made Breadtopia's sourdough rye (50%), and was surprised that I could detect no apparent sourness (I'm not real familiar with rye, this was the first one I made, but thought there should be some sourness with that much fermentation time) . Overnight temps were about 70 F. Their formula had 2.45% salt in the overnight fermentation prior to shaping. That's a bit more than Calvel used.

Thanks for the reminder re including starter in autolyse. That is most useful to know. I've been soaking my wholewheat flour first ranging from a couple of hrs to overnite (sponge with a pinch of yeast) with plain water I was afraid that the yeast and starter may speed things up unnecessarily. When I'm ready to add the bread flour I mix this tog with my starter and remaining water and wait another half hr or so. I'll aim for a longer autolyse in future.

Thanks to all the advice from the wonderful folks on TFL, I finally baked a 40% ww with 75% hydration loaf that tastes right . I was expecting it to be a huge flop as it looked extremely over-proofed, part of it stuck to the side of the DO when I transferred it from the banneton, there was not enough room for my hand to straighten it without spoiling the entire dough. The flavour of the wholewheat is just right and I am a happy baker. . Compared to my last bake this loaf is a sad case of one step forward, two steps back. Back to the kneading board to work on the crust and crumb...

I'm still getting white specks of white flour in the crumb, sign of poor mixing.

My sourdough is very mild. When I refresh the starter, I 5x it, and it will be ready in about 8 hours. I also put a bit of instant yeast into the dough so that I don't have to spend all day waiting. Not a whole lot, just 1/2%, but gives me a two hour rise. This also tends to reduce the acidity.

Maybe I should also look at 1x4 or 5 if I'm refreshing my starter at night for an early morning bake. Mine is rising too fast, but can only refresh once, unless I refresh it once during the day before I go to work. I sometimes cheat with a little yeast when I autolyse my wholewheat flour overnight.

When reviving my starter aftrer a few weeks in the refrigerator, I will refresh it overnight and then again while I'm at work, followed by another overnight stint, whereupon it's ready. The while-at-work refresh worked well in the winter, but I'm not sure how well it will work in the summer when my house gets into the upper 80's inside. Perhaps a 6x refreh would work.

My commercial yeast percent is a half percent. For my 3/4 recipe of Reinhart's sourdough, I use 2 grams of instant yeast. For the bulk fermentation, I do 1.5 hours of folds (3), followed by about a 2 hour undisturbed rise. Proofing is about two hours.

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